Gather 'round the fire, kiddies! Back in the winter of 1980 a terrible ice storm hit my hometown, coating literally everything with a thick layer of ice, felling trees, knocking out electricity for days and generally messing things up. My family went back to the old ways, roasting potatoes to eat in tinfoil on the fire and reading each other stories in the eerie, still, semi-darkness. I picked The Boogeyman (from the Night Shift collection) by Stephen King as my gift to my family, scaring the tar out of everyone, including myself. Fast forward a few decades and the boogeyman now sports his own cinema franchise, brought to you by the producers of The Grudge!

Boogeyman 2 (like this review) starts in the past, with promises of highbrow scares quickly dashed, as a pair of siblings watches the titular baddie unspool their dad's intestines in graphic detail. Fast forward a decade and sibling Henry is leaving the loony bin, all cured of his boogeyman phobias and ready to move away from sister Laura, who still has a way to go before being able to sleep in the dark. Why not set her up in the same psychiatric hospital, where she can receive truly terrifying care from grim doctor Allen, played with black, sleepy zest by Tobin Bell of Saw fame? Why not? Maybe because the boogeyman murders will just start happening again, that's why!

Seriously, though, for all its by-the-numbers innovation (forebears abound, most notably Nightmare On Elm Street III) Boogeyman 2 will earn favor with happy-go-lucky gore-hounds and fright-fidos through liberal deployment of the sauce and grim atmosphere - never mind its seriously cracked take on psychiatry. Dr. Allen's technique of shoving boogey-phobic patients in dark closets and locking the door may raise eyebrows. A poorly lit psych ward painted in suicide-inducing battleship gray might cause parents of Hollywood-gorgeous 'teens' to think twice before admitting their kids, too. Maybe that's why, in a hospital the size of the Luxor, there seems to be only four or five patients, two doctors and one nurse. Late-night scream-a-thons, blood-spewing hacky-hacky and a general huge ruckus do nothing to disturb anyone, only summoning ol' boogey, who shuffles along in a disturbing metal fright mask, barely working up a sweat.

Utterly bleak production design and half-hearted, (though rather gory in a music-video-edit kind of way) ironic murder set pieces will have to suffice, (even Tobin Bell's horrific bedside manner is brief - probably two days shooting worth) as the grim tension is never relieved by actual scares. Just when a grip of atmosphere is cranked up, there, off in the distance, shuffles boogeyman, closer, closer, as the chance to be scared by his appearance deflates. Which is just about the way of modern American horror these days. But Boogeyman 2 ends up in the plus-column for an otherwise average horror sequel potboiler, with plenty of dripping viscera in the unrated director's cut, and a truly, unrelentingly dark and hopeless air.

The DVD

Video:
2.35:1 Anamorphic widescreen and 1.33:1 fullscreen presentations are on hand if you'd like to watch this on different monitors. Both versions are top-line high definition mastering jobs, brilliantly crisp and resolute in the face of wild cutting and wavery camera work. Speaking of cutting, colors are bland and purposefully washed-out, except when the snip-snip comes into play, then you'll see just how deep the reds can be.

Sound:
English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and French Dolby Surround sound audio tracks fit the bill perfectly, with plenty of (as far as my TV speakers could translate) creepy scraping sounds and whimpers of pain popping up in odd places.

Extras:
In addition to English, French and Spanish subtitles, Scene Selection Menus and Closed Captioning, two Audio Commentary Tracks - one with Director Jeff Betancourt and Screenwriter Brian Sieve, and one with Tobin Bell, Danielle Savre (Laura) and Producers Gary Bryman and Steve Hein will enrich repeated viewings. Betancourt and Sieve contribute lively and active anecdotes about nearly every aspect of production, from screenplay intent to production company mandates to on-set illness and blood cleanup. They make me want to work in the movies and make me respect their efforts. The second commentary track gets a bit repetitive and falls more in the watching the movie and chiming in occasionally category, but does have Bell's wonderful laconic voice and other tidbits Savre and the producers provide. Lastly, a five-minute Featurette titled Bringing Fear To Life (which I think they copped from The Grudge DVD) is a brisk, light, audio-visual collage of storyboards, behind-the-scenes effects shots, and the finished gore / makeup highlights. Think of it as a meta-trailer of sorts. Start or finish your viewing experience with about ten Trailers and Previews for other spooky spectaculars.

Final Thoughts:
I'll never recapture my days of ice-bound storytelling, nor will I be able to relive what it was like when any old horror movie scared me. Boogeyman 2 would probably put my wife through the wringer while turning her stomach, but for the seasoned veteran, you might bring along your checklist of horror tropes and tidbits. To its black heart's credit, Boogeyman 2 brings the blood so many tepid retreads of late have been afraid to show. And instead of focusing on how cute its actors are, and how hip it can be, Boogeyman 2 oozes desolation and despair, making it worthy fodder for a late-night viewing. Found in a bargain bin, I'd buy it, but in the grand scheme of things, I feel comfortable saying Rent It.

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